Print shops are typically medium or large scale facilities capable of supplying printing services to meet a variety of customer demands. For example, print shops are often used to print documents for mass-mailing (e.g., customer bills, advertisements, etc.). Because print shops engage in printing on a scale that is hard to match, their customer base is usually varied. Print shop customers may therefore include both large institutional customers (e.g., credit card companies and banks), and small customers (e.g., small businesses and churches).
Print shops are generally arranged to print incoming jobs from customers in a way that is economical, yet fast. Thus, print shops often include a number of high-volume printers capable of printing incoming jobs quickly and at high quality. Print shops also typically include post-printing devices that are used to process the printed documents of each job (e.g., stackers, staplers, cutters, binders, etc.). Print shops may also provide digital/web publishing, e-mail, or other multimedia services to customers. Because print shops serve a variety of customers, they are often tasked with processing jobs that have varying printing formats, delivery dates, and media requirements.
Each print job sent to the print shop is associated with a workflow, which is an ordered set of activities to perform at the print shop to transform the (electronic data of the) print job into a deliverable physical product for a customer. For example, workflow activities may include “pre-flighting” the print job to check for errors, rendering the print job, physically printing and drying the print job, proofing the printed job, and removing the print job from the system. Because print jobs typically request different types of processing, the specific workflow associated with a given print job may vary on a job-by-job basis.
Print workflow systems enable a user to define the type and order of activities to perform in a workflow for a print job. However, in a print shop, certain activities may have requirements that should be met in order for the activity to be properly performed. For example it may be important to perform certain activities in a certain order (e.g., a print job cannot be packaged for delivery before it has been printed). Since there are a vast number of possible workflow activities (e.g., hundreds), and each activity may have its own unique requirements, it remains a complicated process for a print shop operator to create a workflow that will not generate an error at the print shop. Thus, print shop operators continue to desire enhanced user interfaces that aid in the crafting of workflows for printing systems.